


it's all an act (until it isn't)

by LetItRaines



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Captain Swan September Sunshine (Once Upon a Time), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 19:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetItRaines/pseuds/LetItRaines
Summary: High school drama teacher Killian Jones doesn’t have time for drama off the stage. He’s had enough of it in his life, and no part of him is searching for more. But then the day before his theater class’s modern day interpretation of a fairytale begins its four-week run, his two leads get sick. There are no understudies, no one to fill the roles, but as they say, the show must go on.With him in it, apparently.Having Emma Swan, the music teacher and woman who has avoided him since her first day of work at Storybrooke High, fill in as the starring role opposite him is the complete opposite of what he expected.





	it's all an act (until it isn't)

**Author's Note:**

> For the wonderful wellhellotragic and shireness-says❤️

“Where the bloody hell are Ethan and Kate?”

Killian’s voice bellows over the stage, his words echoing off of the walls and seemingly disappearing into the void, which is what happens whenever he talks on some days. He’s got maybe five students who actively listen to him every single day, and every single one of those five are on a field trip to some kind of classical music concert that he did not give approval for. Granted, he’s only the drama teacher, but when they have the opening night of the play they’ve been practicing for coming up tomorrow, he kind of expects his students to be around.

Or to at least be asked if the field trip interferes with anything.

But was he asked? No, of course he wasn’t. He’s never asked anything because on the school’s totem pole of important faculty, he is at the bottom with all of the other fine arts teachers, which is a damn shame. Reading and writing and arithmetic are important. No one knows this more than him, someone who has spent nearly all of his life in school even when he was in the Navy, but kids can’t be contained at a desk all day. They have to move or create art, whether that be painting, acting, or playing the damn piccolo. They have to be able to broaden their horizons and have an outlet for everything that they’re going through, so he thinks the drama department is pretty damn important.

As well as the art and music departments, even the physical education departments – and that’s not simply because he is also the track and field coach.

And yet, here he is unable to find his two leads for tomorrow, as well as most of his best students, and it’s all because Emma Swan didn’t bother to tell him that she was taking so many of his kids away to go to an all-day music festival outside of town the day before opening night.

Killian would bet that she did it on purpose.

Actually, he knows that she did.

Emma Swan is the bane of his existence. Never will he forget the day that she started at Storybrooke High three years ago. They’d pulled up into the teacher’s parking lot at the same time, and he’d seen her struggling to grab all of her bags and boxes of things, so he’d quickly slung his bag over his shoulder and walked toward her, offering her both a smile and a hand. She’d accepted, a nervous smile on her face, her green eyes very obviously wary of him, and they’d walked in the front doors of the school together.

She was (is) gorgeous. There was no denying that, not that he ever has. She was all toned legs and arms in her red dress that contrasted well against the light, but not too pale, tone of her skin. Her smile was brightened by the red lipstick she was wearing, her full lips accentuated by it, and the blonde of her hair fell down her back in waves that he wanted to run his fingers through.

Obviously, he didn’t. There’s such a thing as human decency and sexual harassment, and he is nothing if not a gentleman (most of the time), but he did notice that she was simply a stunning woman.

The stunning Emma Swan.

There’d been small talk, of course, and he’d asked her about her new position here, what school she was coming from, follow up questions to all of that, and then offered his help for anything and everything that she might need while starting her new job. She’d smiled and said thank you, but then she’d easily navigated to her office, the one just outside of the music classroom and across the hall from his office and the auditorium where he spends his days, and shut the door in his face.

After that, he never quite cracked her code.

During lunch, she seems to have no issue talking to other teachers. She gladly chats with Belle, their librarian, Mary Margaret, the science teacher for grades nine and ten, and occasionally she can be seen talking with other teachers as well. Really, she’s so goddamn friendly with everyone that it makes absolutely zero sense for her to dislike him and not want to be friendly with him. Sure, he’s been disliked by many a woman before – bad dates and relationships and then once for taking the last carton of milk at the grocery store – but he’s always known why. He’s never been left in this state of confusion as to why he’s disliked.

Which is a shame because he quite fancies her from time to time when she’s not yelling at him for taking her students away from practice to work with him on stage or when she’s stealing his students for a last-minute fieldtrip to who knows where on the day of dress rehearsals.

Emma’s got this thing that she does during faculty meetings where whenever she disagrees with what’s being said, she scrunches up her nose and makes it wrinkle. He imagines that she wrinkles her nose when she thinks of him, most likely holding one of her many swan-themed coffee mugs that’s got a fifty-fifty shot of being filled with coffee with vanilla creamer or hot chocolate topped with loads of cinnamon. He can’t even begin to imagine how much she has to work out for how she eats. That, or she has the world’s greatest metabolism.

Damn her for making him notice these things and damn her for stealing his students.

“Seriously, guys,” Killian grumbles again, shifting the canopy bed prop that they rolled onto stage earlier this afternoon. His hands are full of callouses and most likely stained in paint for how much work he’s had to put into making the set. Liam and Elsa have come to the school or his apartment after they get off of work to help out with making sets, and he wonders just how he can repay them for going above and beyond when they already work far more often than him…and he feels like he never stops working. “Why aren’t you listening to me? Where are Kate and Ethan?”

Of the thirty teenagers that he still has with him today, two look up, and neither of them say anything, simply looking at him with pleading eyes, begging him not to make them talk. He loves all of these kids, and even though sometimes it’s hard to garner the attention of all of them, it’s usually much better than this.

He’s a damn good teacher. He can command a room, his five far-too-loyal students aside.

“Bloody hell,” he shouts, clapping his hands together so that the remaining twenty-eight heads look up at him with varying degrees of disgust. “I know that you guys don’t have a lot to do right now when we’re missing our leads, but that doesn’t mean you can just ignore me. Now will someone tell me where Kate and Ethan are? I know they’re not in music, so I know that they’re not on the field trip.”

His eyes scan over the group, looking for someone who’s going to crack, and he finally finds it in Ava.

“They’re sick, Mr. Jones,” she says quietly as her fingers twist around her braid. “That’s what Kate said when she texted me this morning.”

“Are they actually sick or are they skipping classes today while their parents think that they’re at school? And are they going to be better tomorrow?”

He’s met with silence once more until a deep laugh breaks out from Felix, a kid who is great at building sets but not so great at being a part of the team. Honestly, Killian has no idea why he’s even in this class when he could have chosen from several other electives. Deep down, he thinks it might be to torture Killian. Honestly. He’s only ninety percent sure that isn’t the reason he’s in the class.

Maybe eighty percent. It depends on the day.

“They have fucking mono, man,” Felix laughs, propping his feet up on the theater chair in front of him. “They’re not coming to class.”  


“Language,” Killian says instinctively while his mind runs over the information he’s just been given. He’s a little loose with his curse words, but Americans seem to be a little more reserved with curses than he and all of his fellow Brits are so this is something he’s had to deal with while teaching in America. “What do you mean they have mono? How do you know this, but I don’t?”

“Group chat,” Felix answers noncommittally. “Ethan went to the doctor a couple days go, then Kate went, and they both got mono because they’re not just making out on stage, you know?”

Yes, he does know about the fact that the two leads in his play are dating. He didn’t when he cast them, but that also wouldn’t have mattered. He knows far too much about each of his students and their personal lives because for some reason, every bit of gossip happens while in this auditorium. The things that he’s heard while trying to paint a tree for set or while attempting to give an actual lesson where his students are supposed to take notes on the history of theater.

No part of him misses when he was a teenager. Every little thing feels like the most important thing, and he cannot imagine having to feel that way again.

“They have mono,” he repeats, testing out the words on his tongue all the while he tries to convince himself that this isn’t real. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. You haven’t gotten a note from their parents about it?”

Killian shakes his head before pulling his phone out of his back pocket, ignoring texts from his brother and his mates so that he can login to his school email. There are several messages that he sees that he needs to get to later all involving logistics for the show tomorrow night, and then he sees the emails Felix mentioned.

Bloody buggering fuck.

His leads are sick.

And they didn’t do any understudies because no one else was comfortable enough to sing on stage, and he figured that it’s just a high school play that the kids wanted to put on as a part of the class. It wasn’t a big deal.

Except for the fact that their principal told him that the ticket sales can all go toward fundraising for the drama department, and now he doesn’t have anyone to actually lead the play.

His students wanted to put on a modern-day fairytale, and all of these disasters happening at once make him think that he might very well be living in one.

If a modern-day fairytale is actually a nightmare.

* * *

Killian has been staring at his computer screen in his office for at least two hours when he hears the click of boots against the linoleum floor in the hallway outside of his office. It’s past six, everyone long gone, and he knows that it can only be one person walking out in the hallway.

Emma.

There’s a flash of long legs and blonde hair falling over a red leather jacket, and he’d recognize those three elements of her person anywhere. But as she’s walking into her office, across the hall from him, he definitely knows that it’s her. The fact that she leaves her door open and he can see her sitting at her desk certainly doesn’t help him forget.

How is she so beautiful and infuriating all at once?

“It’s rude to stare, Jones,” Emma shouts from her office like she does whenever they have these kinds of conversations.

He blinks up at her, unaware of how long exactly he has been staring at her. His head is pounding a ridiculous amount, and he wonders why the hell he ever left England and the Royal Navy just to come to America to teach high school drama and yell at kids to keep running around an asphalt track.

(Heartbreak, following his brother, et cetera.)

“It’s rude to take away my students the day before we have a show opening.”

“Their parents signed permission slips. I wasn’t aware I needed approval from you too.”

“Yeah, well, it’s common courtesy to at least let me know. Why isn’t there a school policy about that?”

He can’t quite see, but he knows that she’s rolling those green eyes of hers. She rises from her desk, and while he thinks she’s only getting up to close her office door, she doesn’t. Instead, she walks into the hallway and over to his office, leaning her shoulder up against his doorframe as she crosses her arms over her chest. When did she take her jacket off to leave her in a simple white sweater?

“You okay?” Emma asks, what sounds like genuine concern in her voice.

“Do you actually care?”

She scoffs, and he looks up at her again so that he can see the slightest twitching in her jaw along with a wrinkling of her nose.

“Believe it or not, I’m not a complete and total bitch. You look like you’re freaking out, and I’m genuinely concerned about that.”

“Ah well,” he sighs, reaching up to scratch behind his ear as he plasters a fake smile on his face, “you don’t have to worry about me, love. I’m perfectly fine.”

“You’re a liar is what you are.”

“How would you know?”

“For one, you have the worst poker face in the world, but I also have a little bit of a superpower in being able to tell when someone is lying.”

“Really now?”

“Yep. You don’t teach teenagers for six years without knowing how to tell someone is lying.” She steps further into the room and takes a seat in the cushioned chair that sits in the small space across from his desk. This might be the most pleasant conversation they’ve had in years, and he’s still not entirely sure that it isn’t some kind of fever dream. “So, tell me, Jones, what has you looking like you’d rather have a mug full of rum than coffee this late in the afternoon?”

Sighing, he leans forward on his desk and taps his fingers over the script, large letters typed out to read “Sleeping Beauty.” He’s got the entire script memorized now, mostly because he was the one to write the majority of it – with the help of the actual fairytale, the movie, and then his students when they insisted they do a modern version of a fairytale with a twist – but also because he’s been running lines with these kids for weeks.

And now he has no stars.

“I’m a bloody idiot,” he starts, swallowing his pride and the stress that’s lodged in his throat, “because I didn’t cast understudies for this play. Only two students in the class were comfortable both singing and sharing a kiss on stage, and I figured that it would be fine. It’s not a huge production, but then I was told that ticket sales could go to the theater department so that I can actually have funding. But the joke is on me because my leads have mono and are pretty much out for the entire month that we were going to be doing the show.”

Silence surrounds him as he finishes his rant, wondering why the hell he’s ranting to Emma in the first place, and he swears that he can hear the beating of his heart. Or maybe it’s the ticking of the clock above his door.

“You don’t have any other kids who know the lines?”

“Ava Hanson,” he sighs, looking up at Emma while he runs his hands through his hair, “but she’s not going to feel comfortable on stage. At this point, I’m wondering if we should simply postpone or if maybe I should play the lead role and modify things to make it more appropriate. Honestly, though, I’m not sure if I feel comfortable doing that.”

Emma groans, something deep and annoyed, and he’s just about to snap at her as he wonders what the hell could she possibly be upset about when she gets up from the chair and starts pacing back and forth in the room, her face buried in her hands.

“I’m willing to help you,” Emma huffs, stopping her pacing to look at him with her hands on her hips.

“What, love?”

“Look, I know what it’s like to be a part of the arts department, obviously, and funding is so hard to come by that I wouldn’t want you to miss out on any for those kids. Plus, I’m sure a bunch of the kids were looking forward to it. So, for those two reasons and those two reasons alone, I will read over the script and see if I can act in your play if you’re going to fill in for the other lead role.”

“You’re serious?” Killian questions. There’s no way. Absolutely none. “You realize this is a three-times a week thing for four weeks, it involves singing, extra time for no pay, and you have to spend time with me?”

“I obviously haven’t won the lottery or anything here, but yeah, I got all of that.”

“And you know what play we’re doing, right?”

“Sleeping Beauty.”

“Which involves a kiss.”

Emma’s lips fall into the shape of an “O” and he chuckles at that, thoroughly enjoyed by the blush on Emma’s cheeks and the continual blinking of her eyes.

“Just,” she whines, reaching down onto the desk to pick up the script he was looking at, “brush your teeth beforehand, and don’t think I’m taking my eyes off of you for a second.”

“I would despair if you did.”

* * *

There’s a substitute filling in for all of the theater and music classes the next day as he and Emma run through lines and do the messiest rehearsal in the history of rehearsals. Surprisingly, she knew most of her lines when she walked into the auditorium this morning, and while that did make everything go more smoothly, it was still a mess finding their timing as well as the timing of all of their students. But by the time the lunch bell rings, they’ve got a pretty good handle on it, and he sends Emma off to the closet where they keep the costumes to see if she can fit into Kate’s costumes. He’s sure that she can, especially with how slight Emma is, but then Emma walks up on stage with her breasts practically spilling out of the dress.

“What am I supposed to do about this?”

“To what are you referring?” Emma rolls her eyes and motions her hands around until she’s pointing at her chest, impatiently waiting for him to acknowledge the slight problem. “Well, love, your discomfort is a cross I’m willing to bear.”

Emma laughs, her eyes rolling once more, but he can see the slight smile on her face.

They might just get on, the two of them.

Or kill each other.

Everything for the rest of the day is a blur of him practicing while also dealing with all of the disasters and melodramatic emergencies that his students go through, and he swears the he blinks and people are already filling the auditorium. Liam and Elsa were kind enough to collect tickets for him, as well as buying far more tickets than necessary and forcing all of Elsa’s family to come to the show like he’s a teenager performing tonight and not an adult who screwed up, and he absolutely knows that he’s going to be teased about this until someone else does something equally embarrassing.

Not that being in theater is embarrassing. But being over thirty years old and acting with several sixteen-year-olds is.

Plus, they all know about his slight infatuation with Emma Swan and her definite dislike of him, and Killian just knows that Liam is going to be sitting in the front row recording this to have on file forever. It’ll likely be his Christmas card. Forget a picture of he and Elsa and Elsa’s ever-growing baby bump. It’s going to be Killian walking around on stage.

Closing the curtains he’s peeking out of, Killian turns around to see Emma standing in front of him wearing jeans and a blouse, her feet covered in white sneakers.

“What the bloody hell are you wearing?”

“It’s a modern-day fairytale,” she points out with a smirk, motioning her hands over her. “This is what a modern-day woman wears. Plus, I bent over in that dress and a boob popped out. I’m not flashing some of these dads who already think they can hit on me.”

“Yeah,” Killian gulps, forcing a smile as his stomach twists, “good point. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

It goes surprisingly well even though everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Felix curses in the middle of the one scene that he’s in, Ava’s microphone goes out which makes her cheeks flame in embarrassment, a tree falls down on top of him during the forest scene, and the bed squeaks when he kneels down on top of it to kiss Emma awake.

And that is something else entirely.

He and Emma had argued for an hour over the scene where Phillip wakes Aurora up with a kiss. She’d agreed that it was written well and followed the original storyline, but she’d protested in how they should actually go about it. How the hell does one kiss their colleague and then everything go back to normal?

How did he ever expect his students to do that as well?

This is nothing like it ever was when he was occasionally in community theater in different parts of his life.

But then the play ends to a hefty smattering of applause, and Killian can finally take a deep breath.

And it starts all over again.

Four weeks. He can do four weeks.

* * *

“This is exhausting,” Emma sighs as she stretches out across the panels on the stage, her body star-fished on the wood.

The two of them have been at the school since seven this morning cleaning up the auditorium so the janitor didn’t have to come in on an extra day. It’s the right thing to do when it’s their fault that there’s extra mess in the school, but he’s really and truly regretting it right now that his head pounds at the lack of caffeine in his system. Emma was smart enough to walk in the school with one of her swan mugs full of coffee, but his mind was not thinking that far ahead this morning.

Damn Kate and Ethan for getting mono.

Can he damn his students?

He probably should not be doing that.

But he kind of wants to because while the past three weeks have been stressful and busy and his personal life has absolutely gone down the drain, it hasn’t been…awful. All of his students are having a grand time, having fun with each other and becoming more comfortable in their roles, and to him, that’s the most important thing. He wants them to know that this can be a fun experience and that they don’t have to worry about being judged. So, that’s been great.

Kissing Emma Swan approximately (exactly) eighteen times has been not so great.

Okay, well, it’s actually been wonderful in a weird sense. Stage kissing and actual kissing are two entirely different things, but once the stiffness of those first few days was gone, it felt more natural.

And his odd, inexplicable crush on Emma only deepened, which is the last thing that he wanted.

(He’s turning into a teenager.)

It only gets worse in the fact that she walked inside the building today in a pair of short black running shorts and a matching black tank top with her hair pulled off of her neck in a ponytail. He doesn’t know when she finds the time to work out, but if the definition in her arms and legs shows anything, it’s that she very much does find the time.

(So working out and a good metabolism is how she eats like she does.)

Plus, well, she’s not all bad.

They bicker more than anyone he’s ever met. If he says black, she says white. If he wants to get Chinese delivery for a late dinner, she wants pizza. If he wants to change the tempo on a song to be faster, Emma wants it to be slower. Every single thing is a battle, and he loves it.

In fact, he hasn’t had this much fun in years. Their bickering is different than their bickering of the past. It’s no longer hostile and falls more into the category of teasing or, if he’s a tad bit presumptuous, flirting. A little thrill of excitement runs through him when Emma picks a fight or teases him about the flip of his hair in the same way that he sees her lips curl up into a smile when he teases her right back for the way that her voice croaked during their third performance.

Fun.

Spending time with her is fun.

And he’s terrified to know what’s going to happen when the show ends its run in a week and they go back to hating each other from across the hallway.

“Aye,” he confirms, using the muscles in his arms to pull himself up to sit on the edge of the stage, his fingers reaching over to mess with the loose bit of Emma’s sock, pulling a bit more when she doesn’t flinch away. “Tis exhausting. I plan on sleeping for a solid week when it’s all over.”

“We have school.”

“I’m thinking of playing hooky. You want to join?”

“Depends,” she mumbles, sitting up and bringing her knees to her chest, “what are we going to do?”

Killian hums in thought, tapping his finger against his chin. “Well, for one, sleeping for at least a day. Then drinking a glass or two of rum without having to worry about waking up early the next morning, which is kind of the same thing. But mostly, in this fantasy world, I’m going to spend days away from teenagers of any and all kinds.”

“Amen to that, Jones. Add in some greasy hangover food after that night of rum drinking, and I am there.”

“Grilled cheese and onion rings?”

“It’s scary how you know that.”

“We share a cafeteria five days a week, love,” he sighs, turning a bit more on the stage so that he can look at her while he talks. “A man picks up on some things. I’m sure you notice these things about me too.”

Her brows furrow, suspicion painted in her features, and he has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. “This sounds like some kind of trap to stroke your ego, and I am not falling for it.”

“My princess,” he says sarcastically, knowing that she hates it, “whatever shall I do with you? I’d go to the ends of the world or time to make you happy.”

“All you have to do is go to the faculty lounge and make me some more coffee.”

Killian hops down from the stage and bends over in a sarcastic bow that has Emma laughing. “As you wish, milady.”

The show that night goes smoothly, probably their smoothest one yet. Everyone is settled in their roles now, so there’s not much to do but work on vocals and do little tweaks that he’ll need to work on if they also do a spring production. With classes and track and field practice, he’s not entirely sure how he’ll fit one in, especially with every other event that takes up the auditorium near graduation, but it’s simply something to think about.

As well as having understudies. He’s never making this mistake again even if it’s going much better than he ever could have imagined.

Emma is a damn good stage partner, which shouldn’t be surprising given what he knows about her musical ability, but being a musician doesn’t always translate over into being a good actor. At the beginning, he was definitely simply hoping for someone to fill the spot in the most adequate of ways. He was never expecting her to be good.

He also wasn’t expecting them to still have crowds this many shows in. Honestly, when the school set-up this timeline, he expected it to only last two weeks and for them to cancel the rest of the shows, but he managed to get a few retirement homes, elementary schools, and recreational groups to come on different nights so that there’s always someone sitting in the crowd.

If Will, Robin, and Liam are asses who keep coming back simply so that they have more proof of him acting with Emma, that’s beside the point.

If he went to dinner with Elsa three days ago and told her that he’s developed actual feelings for Emma over the past few days, that’s definitely beside the point.

And yet it is also every point on all of his lists written over and over again in permanent marker.

Every logical bone in his body told him not to let his little crush fester and develop into something more, but spending all of this time with her, watching her laugh at his jokes or hum along to their music while cleaning up after the shows has completely endeared her to him. It’s the oldest story in the world – a man falls for a woman – and yet he thinks this has the beginnings to be his favorite tale.

Tonight, though, is their final show, and since Kate and Ethan received the all clear from their doctors two days ago, he and Emma are very gladly stepping down from their roles to let their students close it out. A little bit of fate or good coincidence is playing out here, and when his ever-loyal small group of students tell him to go sit in the audience for once and watch, he listens.

If not with a bit of trepidation as it’s not like him not to be behind the curtains making sure everything goes just right.

“You want some popcorn?” Emma asks him when she plops down in the seat next to him, a red and white striped box in her hands, the smell of salt and butter invading his nostrils. “It’s really good. I’m sure it goes against your healthy eating lifestyle, but you should live a little.”

Killian reaches over to grab a handful, the butter greasy on his fingertips, before popping two pieces in his mouth. “So, you have noticed the way that I eat.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.” She knocks her shoulder into his, and he knocks right back. “It’s going to be weird watching it from down here. I feel like I should be singing to you or gurgling mouthwash or something.”

“I knew you used mouthwash right before we kissed.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure that I could trust you despite me telling you to brush your teeth.”

“Minty and fresh,” he breathes, twisting his head so that he can get that little bit closer to Emma. “And maybe a little buttery now.”

“It’s a good thing you won’t be kissing me tonight then.”

His stomach twists at that, his heart dropping a little bit, and he knows that is shouldn’t. He’s an adult. He knows what happens up on that stage is all an act, literally, and his mind shouldn’t get confused by it. And while his mind likely isn’t confused by the lines that they say on stage, it’s confused by what happens off of it. It’s the lunches together and the way Emma comes into his office when they’re both staying late on non-play nights grading papers. Neither of them close their doors now, those wooden frames always staying open, and while she does still shout at him from across the hallway, very rarely is it cross words. Oftentimes it is simply Emma telling Killian to check his phone because she has sent him yet another meme about being a theater teacher.

Truly, it’s the smiles and small jokes and the way that her steps match up with his in the hallways, the echoes of their shoes blending together so that no one would know who exactly it is that’s walking down the corridors of the school.

It’s the subliminal changes, the ones that only he would notice, and while they are small, much like Emma, they are mighty.

“Yeah,” Killian mumbles a little dejected as he takes another bite of popcorn, “it is a good thing.”

Emma looks at him with parted lips like she’s about to speak, but before she can say anything, the squeak of the curtains opening sounds the beginning of the show.

Because Killian’s been acting in it and consumed with playing many roles both on and off stage, he hasn’t truly been able to appreciate the production. He hasn’t been able to appreciate the sets or the way that the kids easily change them between scenes. Now he’s able to notice that and precisely how much everyone has improved, how confident his students are under the lights and in front of the crowds. He’s always been a fan of pushing comfort zones, of helping his more shy students break out of them, but he also knows that it can’t be forced. Some people simply are not comfortable with that no matter how much time he gives, and that’s okay. They find their roles in other ways.

“Kate’s voice is beautiful,” Emma whispers in his ear, but he has a difficult time focusing on it for how her hand is curled around his forearm. She’s got soft hands, especially considering the callouses he knows should form from playing instruments all day. “Does she play any instruments? Why is she not in one of my music classes?”

“Don’t pilfer my students, Swan.”

Her fingers pinch around his skin, pulling at the hair, and Killian scrunches up his nose while he looks at her, their noses only two or three inches apart. “I wasn’t trying to, thank you very much. I was thinking maybe we could see if some of my students wanted to do a combination with yours. We could do live music with a play. Maybe not one that runs for four weeks, but at least a show.”

“Look at you coming around to me.”

“Yeah, well, like you said, we make quite the team.”

When the play is over, his students doing a bang-up job and giving a better performance than they ever would with he and Emma on stage, the audience rises for a standing ovation that has the grin on his face stretching from ear-to-ear. It looks the same to Emma. Kate and Ethan and the rest of their students insist that he and Emma stand on stage with them all, each of them very obviously going for dramatic effect, so he takes Emma’s hand and walks around the front aisle of the auditorium until they can walk up the side steps and have their thirty seconds of gratification and self-indulgence in doing a good job.

Killian doesn’t let go of Emma’s hand.

More importantly, Emma doesn’t let go of his.

She does eventually when they start cleaning up for the night, parents and students helping out as they all eat the pizza that Liam decided to donate for the night. Attached to the top box was a note telling Killian to stop being a coward and to ask Emma out, and thankfully, he snatched that piece of paper away quickly before stuffing it in his pocket. His older brother never does seem to stop finding ways to embarrass him while also being a good person.

Amazing how that works out.

Eventually the sets are put away yet not dismantled and every pizza but one has been devoured, so Killian grabs it and his car keys before walking out of the auditorium and down the hallway to the exit only to find Emma waiting for him. Or, at least, that’s what he thinks.

“So,” she starts, looking up from her phone to smile at him, the black dress she has on far too distracting, “you want to go get that glass of rum?”

“Swan, are you asking me out on a date?”

“I’m asking you to a bar.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking?”

Emma chuckles, shaking her head from side to side as she steps forward so that they’re eye-to-eye, her heels aiding that. “I knew you’d be old-fashioned, so I’ll tell you what, you can pay. And drive.”

“Why, love, you do flatter a man.”

* * *

“Wait, wait, wait,” Emma mumbles, her hand placed on his thigh, innocently and yet distracting all at once, “you were in the Navy in England? How the hell did you get here?”

They’ve been at the Rabbit Hole bar for two hours now, only one drink each somehow, and he swears that they haven’t stopped talking this entire time. Obviously, he’s gotten to know Emma better over the last month of him spending so much time with her, but it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t her sharing stories of the time she spends with her friends or talking about how she knew Mary Margaret through Mary Margaret’s husband. It wasn’t her telling him that she got into music because the foster mom she had as a teenager was a music teacher and taught Emma to play several instruments. It wasn’t him getting to know her on a level more intimate than the pleasantries that all teachers share at school.

It wasn’t this.

And it definitely wasn’t Emma asking him about his life with more interest than she usually shows.

Or the casual touching that precedes flirting. It may have been awhile for him, but he does know flirting when he sees it. Emma Swan flirting with him makes his stomach twist and his heart pound.

“Eh,” he sighs, reaching up to scratch behind his ear out of nerves, “so I joined the Royal Navy at eighteen. It gave me money and purposed and an education. I’d always been interested in the theater as a kid, so I figured I’d study that and possibly become a teacher after I retired. I simply didn’t expect to retire so soon.”

“Well, why did you?”

The age-old question.

“A broken heart. I’d been dating someone, Milah, for a few years, and I bought a ring to propose to her. I did propose, actually, but she turned me down.” He chuckles the words bitterly with a forced smile on his face. “She’d slept with someone else and had hidden it from me, but I guess the ring made her unable to hide it anymore. So, yeah, that wasn’t great, and when my contract ended later that year, I looked into moving here to be with my brother and his wife, who is American. It was a hell of a lot of paperwork and interviews, but I like being here. It’s relaxing.”

The smile on Emma’s face is soft, apologetic, and he can tell that she wants to say that she’s sorry, to show him pity like everyone always does when he shares that story. It’s something he’s grown used to, but he doesn’t want Emma’s pity.

“I was engaged,” she blurts out instead, pulling her hand back from his thigh to grab her wine from the bar top and take a small sip. “Obviously, I’m not anymore, but I was, right before I started to work at Storybrooke. That’s why I transferred. That’s also why I may have been a bit of a bitch to you.”

“You?” he mock gasps. “You being a little rude to me? Never.”

“Shut up. I’m trying to apologize.”

“You’re not very good at it.”

“I will punch you.”

“So aggressive.”

“You like it,” she teases, flipping her hair over her shoulder so that his eyes are drawn to the dip of her clavicle before he looks back at her eyes.

“Perhaps I do,” he admits quietly, the sounds around him quieting for a moment as he begins to lean in, begins to get closer to Emma, but he stops himself halfway and pulls back. He’s not ruining this moment by making a brash decision. He won’t.

“Uh, um, anyways,” Emma stutters while blinking, her fingers tapping against the glass. She uncrosses her legs, and he nearly falls backward when her calf brushes against his. _Smooth, Jones, smooth. _“So, I was engaged to a guy that I worked with, had the ring on my finger and a wedding date booked, and one day I went to his classroom at lunch to ask him if he wanted to eat the rest of my pasta only to see him making out with the vice principal. Which obviously sucked a lot for me, personally, but also it was super inappropriate. Neal always insisted that we don’t show affection at work. No one even knew it was him I was engaged to, and I guess I didn’t realize why he was that way until I found out he was dating two women at one school, which really took him to a whole new level of shitty.”

“He sounds like a real bastard.”

“Yeah,” Emma laughs, a bitter smile on her face, “yeah he was, but it’s for the best, you know? I’m not glad that it happened, but I’m glad that I found out when I did. I can’t imagine having actually been married to him. So, when I met you and you were all charming and helpful as well as a fellow teacher, I was done with helpful and charming men and kind of took it out on you.”

“You find me charming then?”

“That’s what you got out of that?”

“I do so love a compliment.”

“Stop,” she chuckles, gently slapping his arm. “Don’t be weird about it.”

“Charming and weird are the two words I’d use to describe me, though. But, yeah, Swan, I’m glad you didn’t marry him. I’m glad I didn’t marry Milah. Things tend to work out for the best.” The small, shitty band that’s playing in the corner of the bar shifts tunes to a slower song, one he doesn’t recognize, and an idea pops into Killian’s mind. “So now that feelings have been shared,” he croons, standing up from the stool and holding out his hand toward Emma, “will you do me the honor of allowing me to have this dance?”

Emma arches her brow once more, something she might as well do as often as he does, but the quizzical look doesn’t match the grin on her face. “What if I don’t know how to dance?”

“Well, darling, I know for a fact that’s not true since we just danced in a high school play together for a month, but even if it was, luckily for you, you have a partner who knows what he’s doing. So, come on, let’s go.”

She hesitates, but it’s only for a moment before she’s placing her hand in his and rising from her stool, the two of them going to the half-empty dance floor. It’s more swaying than dancing with how close Emma is standing, one of her hands wrapped around his neck while the other is intertwined with his and resting on his chest. His free hand is on her hip, fingers itching to dip lower, but he doesn’t. He won’t.

Not yet.

Not until Emma steps more into his space, the curves of her body aligned with the lines of his, and he can feel the way her heart is beating in her chest. Or, really, that might simply be his.

“Emma,” he hesitantly whispers. Her lips are close enough to his that he can feel his mouth move over hers when he talks, but it’s not enough. He’s kissed her before, and that definitely wasn’t enough. “Are you sure?”

Instead of answering, she tilts her head up toward his and hesitantly brushes her lips over his, staying still until his mouth responds. In reality, her lips feel the same as they did every single time they had a moment like this on stage, but it’s different. It’s different in the way that she moves against him, in the way that she tugs on his bottom lip and on the way that he tugs on her upper one. It’s different in that there is no acting here, only honesty in the soft and gentle movements that have him sighing into her mouth.

It’s different in that this is truly Emma kissing him, and in the three years that he’s known her, he never could have imagined this. And if he did, reality is so much better.

When they pull back for air, he can feel the smile on Emma’s face as their foreheads press together, and he’s sure that she can feel the giant grin painted on his lips.

“You all good, Emma?”

“Yeah,” she laughs, kissing him again, “except it’s very weird for you to taste like rum instead of toothpaste.”

Killian barks out a laugh before moving his hands to cup her cheeks and smile down at her. “I like you, Emma Swan.”

“Funny thing, I like you too.”

Monday morning, Killian pulls into the parking lot with Emma in his passenger’s seat and her hand resting on his knee.

They never picked up her car on Friday night.

When they get engaged a year later, Belle wins the betting pool on when the two of them would get together. Apparently, both the faculty and students started it on Emma’s fourth day of work at Storybrooke High.

Talk about a modern-day fairytale.

**Author's Note:**

> Pop on over to Tumblr at [let-it-raines](https://let-it-raines.tumblr.com) and let me know what you think, send me a prompt, discover some stories, or simply have a look around ❤️


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